Carrot or Stick? Linking Nigeria’s National Identity Number (NIN) coerced enrolment with Questions of a shared Nigerian Identity

Nigeria commenced enrolment to its national identity program in 2007, and enrolment numbers as of July 2023 stands at 101.6 million. National identity programs have proliferated across Africa in the past decade, and as with Nigeria’s, they are targeted at developmental objectives such as streamlining government social assistance, fighting insecurity and tightening security around financial transactions. These objectives draw on sustainable development goal 16.9, and are often taken for granted, with few studies critically examining whether or not they are being achieved. Drawing on fieldwork in Ajegunle, a marginalized urban settlement in Lagos, in April 2022, this paper explores residents’ linking of the difficult national identity number (NIN) enrolment process with broader questions of a fractured Nigerian national identity, and questioning the real usefulness of the NIN to their daily effort to eke out a living in one of Africa’s most challenging socio-economic environments.